


Fifteen Years

by Bitenomnom



Series: Mathematical Proof [46]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Study in Pink, Character Death, Flashbacks, Fluff, Honeymoon, Hounds of Baskerville, Kissing, M/M, Marriage, Post-Reichenbach, Reichenbach, Retirement, Wedding, fifteen years ago, fifteen years from now, let's have dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:56:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitenomnom/pseuds/Bitenomnom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot changes in fifteen years -- and a lot doesn't.</p><p>Fifteen years before Baskerville, John wanted a dog. Fifteen years before Sherlock was in court, Sherlock was in court. Fifteen years before John met Sherlock, John wasn't interested in the violin. Fifteen years before he met Irene Adler, someone asked Sherlock out for dinner. </p><p>Fifteen years before Sherlock kissed John, Sherlock kissed John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifteen Years

**Author's Note:**

> Oho! There are no math notes in this one! You are heartbroken, I'm sure. I'm just providing an explanation here because it's not exactly a math note? Today I gave a presentation that was meant to discuss and critique a paper I was assigned to read. I have no clue how I did on it, but apparently one of the things I should have thought to research/discuss was that some stuff about fuzzy integrals is so new that it wasn't known about fifteen years ago when the paper was published, and so a lot of the paper was obsolete after the discovery of those other, better/easier properties/methods. (In my defense, I was born in 1990...like I'd have as good as an idea as my 73-year-old professor who specializes at least in part in fuzzy integrals, about the state of research on fuzzy integrals circa 1995...he asked us to find problems in the paper, not shortcomings withing the field of mathematics in the year the paper was published. XD I thought, well, duh, it was published fifteen years ago, of course he doesn't want me to mention that as a flaw of the paper, that's hardly the paper's fault...)
> 
> Anyway! So I was thinking about fifteen years, and things that change over that span of time, and things that don't, and it seemed perfectly suited for this. :) Also, sorry it's short! It's 5:30am already, and I've got work to do tomorrow...I need to get to bed...! Still, I hope it feels like the right length, and not like it was rushed. And I hope you like it!

 

 

            Fifteen years ago, he was talking to his mum.

            “Why can’t we get a dog?”

            “We don’t have room, John. Anyway, you’ll be off to university soon, and then you won’t be around to take him out for walks.”

            “I’d come home every day and do it.”

            His mum chuckled.

            Today, he shot a dog, and stood over it quietly while Sherlock guided Henry Knight to its body, guided his hand to its fur, guided his gaze to its eyes. 

 

 

            Fifteen years ago, he was in a court house.

            “ _Again_?” Mycroft sneered as they left.

           Sherlock shrugged his bag over his shoulder. “It’s not nearly what they made it sound like.”

            They got into the car. Mycroft drove; Mycroft always drove. Why did Mycroft need to drive? Wasn’t he too good for that sort of thing?

            “That’s not what matters, though, is it?” Mycroft asked quietly as he started the car.

            Sherlock snorted.

            “Be more careful next time.”

            Today, Sherlock was in a court, and it wasn’t nearly what they made it sound like.

 

 

            Fifteen years ago, he was considering switching instruments.

            “You’ve got plenty of clarinets, though,” he said to the band director.

            “Because we need plenty.”

            “Can’t I try anything else?”  
 

           “We really don’t _need_ anything else, nothing that’ll be worth your time and effort switching especially. You’ve only got a couple years left, unless you’re continuing on into university.” He’d paused, rapped a pencil against a music stand. “All I can think of is, the pit orchestra needs a few more…oh, but that’ll require much more time than you can put in, I’d think, to learn it properly.”

            “What is it?” John leaned forward.

            “Well…how do you feel about the violin?”

            John shook his head; that _would_ be a lot to learn so quickly. “Maybe not.”

            Today, he was asked the same question, but, he thought, as he laid down to sleep that night, this time he might just say _yes_.

  

 

            Fifteen years ago, somebody asked him out on a date. It was unusual—very unusual—but also unwanted.

            “Let’s have dinner.”  
 

           Sherlock had raised one eyebrow. “Waste of money,” he said, because he lived at his _parents’_ , for godssakes, where he didn’t have to pay for his food, and he was saving up for a more professional microscope than the one he’d gotten for his birthday five years ago.

            She slapped him, which was even more confusing, unless of course she was in a situation in which her only means of eating for the day would be if Sherlock could pay for her meal, unlikely given her weight, state of dress, general emotional stability (aside from, apparently, now, and all the usual ways everyone else seemed to get so _touchy_ ) and the fact that her father’s name had been mentioned recently in the papers as a donor to several museums. He’d said as much: “You’re not exactly starving, are you?”

            Which was apparently worse, because she slapped him again, harder.

            Today, Irene had texted him an invitation to dinner. But of course, John knew that, and John had asked about it, and Sherlock had so hoped the violin would distract him from it more or less for good.

            But, “Are you having dinner with her?” was what John asked the next evening when Sherlock pulled his coat on to pop out and spend a walk to the shop on the corner debating whether he needed more nicotine patches. Clearly the question meant something more to John than retrieving a simple outline of Sherlock’s plans for the evening, based on the timbre of his voice, and if it weren’t for what he’d overheard the day before, Sherlock probably wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint it at all.

            “No,” Sherlock said, and, “I’m not hungry. Waste of money.”

            Which John, apparently, found amusing, because he smiled.

            “What?” Sherlock had asked.

            John chuckled. “Try to tell me there’s no one in London who’d give you a free meal, and then try to tell me that you forgot about that.”

            Sherlock chuckled back, because John was brilliant. “Fancy some pasta?”

            “I was thinking takeaway from that Chinese place we haven’t had for a while.”

            “Ah,” Sherlock said, smile widening at John’s boldness, “yes, that does sound better, doesn’t it?”

           Half an hour later, Sherlock set fire to one of his experiments (on _accident_ , of _course_ ) and left John to tend to it while he drifted downstairs to pay.

 

 

           Fifteen years ago, Sherlock’s lips unstuck from John’s, and John huffed out a faint laugh and ran his hands through Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock held out an arm. “You never did take my pulse again,” he said.

            “Good idea,” John said, and gently grasped Sherlock’s wrist. He opened his mouth as if to make a smartarse crack about it, but as his fingers settled into place, he grew quiet. From Sherlock’s view above him, with John’s gaze focused downward, his eyes appeared to be closed: or maybe they were. John took deep, controlled breaths, and let his fingers rest comfortably for half a minute. “You really are alive, aren’t you?” he finally muttered.

            “Excellent deduction,” Sherlock kissed him again, just to see if it felt nearly as good the second time as the first: it did.

            John ran his fingers over Sherlock’s cheek. “It’ll probably bruise,” he said, and, “sorry.”

            “Don’t apologize,” Sherlock said. “Bruises are interesting.”

            “You have to tell me how you did it.”

            “By which I’m sure you mean _why_ first, and then how.”

            “Yeah.” John finally let go of Sherlock’s wrists, and tentatively wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s torso, pressing his face up against Sherlock’s chest. “You maddening git. I thought you were…”

            “I know,” Sherlock murmured into the top of John’s head, “I know.”

            Today, Sherlock held out an arm, and John crooked his elbow around it.

            “This is stupid,” Sherlock muttered under his breath.

            “Hush,” John said.

            “We’ve already been having sex for over a _decade_ , John.”

            “That’s not what this is about and you know it.”

            “I know,” Sherlock murmured, “I know.”

           Ten minutes later, Sherlock’s lips unstuck from John’s, and John huffed out a faint laugh and ran his hands through Sherlock’s hair, beaming at the sounds of clapping and cheering. Mrs. Hudson, bless her soul, had made it, and while afterward they would chide her for her comments about dying happy, she did just that before the next year was over.

            Sherlock worked the ring in circles around his finger, feeling the texture of the faint etching on the underside as he did so, as they made their way to the car that they both tried to pretend hadn’t been arranged by Mycroft.

            “Stop that,” John said, and Sherlock turned with a start, thinking he’d heard a sting behind the words—but John was grinning, “or people will think you’re trying to take it off already. They’ll talk.”

            “People do little else.”

            They traveled to some cottage tucked away out in the country for the weekend, which Sherlock pretended to hate. John, however, was very, very certain Sherlock enjoyed the arrangement every bit as much as he did, which was, if he was honest, quite a bloody lot.

            He was even surer when, almost fifteen years later, they bought the cottage.


End file.
